Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: Knowing When To Fold 'Em

I'm so out of it that I'm now finding out about things from Bicycling magazine. For example, I'd never seen this video until they linked to it:

I know this sort of thing makes the typical Fred pitch a boner tent in his chamois, but I just wanted to shove their dainty little Rice Krispies treats right down their throats--which really isn't that mean, since that's what they're doing with them anyway.

So basically Bicycling is covering parodies of videos I didn't even know existed. This makes me even more out of it than Lift Propulsive Pedaling guy.

In other professional cycle doping news, the commenter who operates under the nom de plume "CommieCanuk" recently sent me an email concerning this:

I take issue with the Leipheimer quote in the headline. He's clearly confused. The truth is that nobody wanted to hear from Leipheimer before all this doping stuff, when he was the most boring rider ever to throw a leg over a bicycle. Remember the whole "Let Levi Ride" thing?

Of course you don't remember, because nobody cared. "Let Levi Ride" was a fake grassroots campaign hatched by the Great Trek Bicycle Making Company back in 2008, after Astana (Leipheimer's team at the time) was banned from the Tour de France. As you can imagine, people responded to the idea of Levi Leipheimer not being allowed to compete in the Tour the same way they would if you told them they could never drink Ovaltine again, which is to say they shrugged and then said, "Okay, whatever, I didn't even realize it was still around."

Now, though, Leipheimer actually has interesting things to say. He's got beans to spill, skeletons to let out of the closet, and other metaphors. He's also got 22 pets:

We have 22 pets at home, that are all rescues, horses, goats, llamas, pigs, sheep, and they are pretty much our children.

Well, I just got an email from commenter Leroy informing me that he saw it too:

And yes, obviously it's the same one because everybody knows there's only one snake in the entire New York City metropolitan area. This is why the snake is so busy--though not too busy to take a break for some voyeurism:

Fortunately, I didn't see any snakes on my commute to Brooklyn yesterday--nor did I ride a Citi Bike like I did last week, because to be honest the fleet is looking a little bedraggled:

Still, just because I chose not to ride a Citi Bike doesn't mean I didn't want to look like a total goofball. (Or use a fuckload of double-negatives.) Also, trains have air conditioning. So instead I rode a folding bike:

(Pie plate being menaced by a valve stem that looks like a wang.)

I've ridden a lot of different bicycles in the city over the years: fixies, road bikes, cargo bikes, Scattantes... You know what's most different about each them? It's not the geometry, or the drivetrain, or even the clothes you wear while riding them. No, it's how people react to you in crosswalks. For example, if you're riding a fixed gear bicycle, pedestrians will often hesitate as you approach, even if you're stopping for the light. This is because fixies are idiotic contraptions that cannot coast, and coasting puts people at ease, whereas not coasting makes them think you're going to keep going and run them over. Road bikes elicit a similar reaction, because you ride them hunched over the bars and dressed like a human suppository that will not stop until it finds a gigantic anus in which to burrow. Could it be theirs? Pedestrians are not about to cross your path in order to find out.

Folding bikes, on the other hand, intimidate nobody. Pedestrians laugh. Little children laugh and pelt you with Girl Scout Cookies. And every other cyclist, no matter what they're riding, shoals the fuck out of you. I was egregiously shoaled yesterday by a woman on a Citi Bike fully loaded with shopping bags from Banana Republic, and she did so repeatedly and violently. I suspect that if folding bikes were the only bicycles on earth then the "bike backlash" as we know it would not exist. Even Dorothy Rabinowitz and Delia Ephron, both of whom think the bicycle is the most deadly object since the Scud missile, wouldn't give you a second look as they jaywalked in front of you to catch a cab from Bergdorf.

Speaking of stopping at lights, our current police commissioner is a well-known crackdown whore, and so I wasn't taking any chances with running lights, especially when cops were present. Other cyclists are not so prudent. Consider this scenario:

Firstly, notice how the officers park right on the corner so they can block two crosswalks at once. Secondly, notice that there are four (4) cyclists, including myself, and each one of us reacts to the presence of the police car in our own way:

The guy in the far background simply ran the light, the guy across the street got of his Citi Bike and walked it, the rider in front of me stared unwaveringly at the police car's bumper, and I stopped before the crosswalk like a good little sycophant and then wrote a whiny blog about it later.

He announced with satisfaction the arrest last week of a Long Island man accused of routinely spray painting on highway overpasses and walls in Queens. (Graffiti along the Long Island Expressway has come under particular scrutiny from Mr. Bratton, who gets a close view of the vandalism as he returns from his weekend home in the Hamptons.)

Basically, it's totally fine to get mowed down by a car, but you should never have to look at unsightly graffiti while driving one.

Something else I noticed is that cyclocross is the hot new trend in Cat 6 racing:

Above is the little shortcut people take at the Manhattan Bridge approach on the Brooklyn side in order to excise this gentle yet time-consuming sweeping curve:

This shortcut has become increasingly worn in since I left Brooklyn a year an a half ago, and I can only attribute it to the increased popularity and importance of Cat 6 racing. After all, saving three or four seconds could be the difference between crushing or getting crushed by that formidable rival on the mail order single speed with the exposed ass crack. In fact, as I passed the dirt path, an intense three-rider move was ascending it, but I only managed to catch the last rider as he transitioned to the pavement because I had to unlock my phone:

I should also note that an unusually high percentage of riders seemed to be on Citi Bikes, possibly because they'd also decided to augment their commutes with air conditioned train rides. Here's a typical garden variety Citi Salmon in the new "protected" bike lane on Lafayette Street:

Note the look of defiance common to all salmon, but also infused with obvious contempt for my folder:

Seconds later, I was double-shoaled by a brace of Citi Bikes:

I tried to intimidate them by folding and unfolding my diminutive bicycle, but to no avail.

A short while later, I managed to capture a textbook example of classic fixie rider red light crosswalk-circling behavior, and I will let the photos speak for themselves:

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Putz. Either run the light or put your foot down, don't ride around and around in my field of vision like some toothless shark with a beard. "Yes, I see you. You read Urban Velo, I get it. Congratulations, and welcome to bikes," I wanted to tell him as I stuck the 40-foot long seatpost of my folder through his spokes.

In all honesty though I was a bit crankier than usual. See, about 15 minutes prior to this I had popped a Benadryl, owing to what I suspected might be the onset of an attack of hives. Fortunately, the hives did not manifest themselves, but unfortunately I was beginning to feel quite drowsy and extremely irritable, which is what happens when you take an over-the-counter drug with sedative properties in 90-degree heat. That's why there's a warning on the package to "be careful when driving a motor vehicle or operating machinery," which is incredibly stupid advice, because when shouldn't you be careful when driving a motor vehicle or operating machinery?

All of this is to say that maybe I was more irritated than I needed to be, because while I was seething Mister Purple Shorts was perfectly content to suck on a cold beverage and not give a shit:

Finally, the light turned green, whereupon I encountered a family of salmon:

(Salmoning brings families together.)

To be honest, I'll take salmoning over red light fixed-gear crosswalk-circling any day, and at this point they should probably just make all the bike lanes two-way and be done with it. And if you don't believe bike lanes are traffic-calming, just look how much safer the streets are for overloaded shopping cards:

You've heard of "everything but the kitchen sink." Well, this is everything including the kitchen sink:

Also, if it wasn't for bike lanes, how would pedestrians get around construction sites?

Sure, they usually create a little temporary sidewalk, but you always feel like a brick is going to fall on your head if you use it. Therefore, even in my Benadryl-addled state I didn't really mind the pedestrians. I was, however, furious that this guy was wearing the exact same outfit as me!

Maybe the DOT should make it official. Just modify the stick figure bike guy, put up a few signs that say "Refreshment Only!" and you're done!

In case you couldn't tell, he's carrying a tray full of daiquiris, though I realize it also looks like he's about to hurl a bunch of dynamite. Hey, what do you want from me? I don't even have Photoshop! If you want this site to look professional just send me $100,000 and I'll get right on it.

Ingrates.

Speaking of grates, the city stealthily incorporates them into the bike lanes so that Benadryl-addled bike bloggers riding inherently unstable clown bikes one-handed while taking photos are more likely to fall down:

See how they do their best to camouflage them?

Still, I managed to stay erect:

That's "erect" as in I didn't fall off the bike, not as in some embarrassing side-effect of the Benadryl.

And no sooner had I negotiated the grates then this walked right out from in between a pair of parked vans and did his best to do what the grates could not:

Scud Missle. Good one.Is Chorus Line back on Broadway? The Over & Over shirt is fetching.Sorry about the cargo short guy. When Midwesterners visit the Big City, we're told not to bring the cargos, and he must have slipped through.

Cargo bikes, folding bikes, whining about bike lanes --- what has this blob become? Next they'll be week long discussions about gear inches, swapping out your 16tooth for 17tooth and thumb shifters. Crotchety old biker, you've become.

Levi can rescue all the animals in California but he will never help rescue the public' s perception of road racing. It's seems like the sport has been reduced to nothing more than a punchline for epo jokes.

Made from Corn AND Dogs. Waaaaaaaahhhhh. Perhaps an obscure reference to a certain SEC football team and it's fans? And the travelogue, complete with photography, taken while cycling on a folder. I tip my safety kippah to WCRM.

I like to move into the path of the crosswalk circlers. If you're lucky they'll fall victim to toe overlap as they try to cope with the much-reduced circling area.

I can't be the only one that does that. It's like getting your front tire really close to the back tire of some jerkwad doing an "epic" trackstand. Hilarity ensues when he backpedals too much and bumps into you.

Dude!! The salmoning family....the little girl had her helment ON HER HANDLBARS! She may have died shortly after that picture, but at least her handlebars will live to tell the tale. Girl in the white pants...yummy.

Um, and does Benadryl really DO that? Hmm... I wonder if I should make Benadryl cookies to hand out ramdomly? Heh heh. I might be sainted one day. Creating heaven on Earth n'all that. :D

SUCKS when your allergies are seasonal like that, cause there is so very little you can do to control your exposure to them. Allergies can change, y'know, so this may well be temporary, however annoying.

Actually, that wasn't the same snake. It was just a well dressed corporate attorney who couldn't find his ID. Of course, I can't be sure, picture from the prior post may have been the same attorney in Fred Mode commute.

Actually, that wasn't the same snake. It was just a well dressed corporate attorney who couldn't find his ID. Of course, I can't be sure, picture from the prior post may have been the same attorney in Fred Mode commute.

Your post covers many topics today...I get no stream of consciousness from benadryl..instead, being over 50, I can't pee for three days afterwards (it swells the prostate)...The Bratton interview was remarkable for new levels of offensiveness...the story was not about policing the cuty, but the dynamic of his previous term/current term & how it would affect his legacy....the graffiti issue & the bit about subway performers made me howl...they somehow challenge the all-important notion of control....no one cares about his star status or legacy, we just want him to take care of the city...maybe stay here on weekends instead of the Hamptons

WCRM, as you so poignantly highlight with the pics of your ride, there is no shortage of selfish, inconsiderate assholes in the world with a high concentration here in NYC. On my daily commute I routinely and smugly stop before the crosswalk and let pedestrians cross with the light unmolested, but I seem to be in the minority as about 90% of the other cyclists roll through the cross walk. I then have to squeeze around them into traffic to pass them. If any of you readers do this (shoal), please stop. It is a fucking dick move.

It may be my imagination but it seems that in the last two months the level of aggressive stupidity on the part of pedestrians and cyclists (in particular CitiBikers) has achieved new heights. The increase in my desire to kick, shove, beat, etc the miscreants of both ilks is not imaginary and is being carefully monitored.

What a coincidence: On a folding bike yesterday, I was literally laughed at by a little child.

Levi might be boring but LOOK WHAT HE'S BANGIN. Speaking of bangin', I'm having fun checking out the ladies in your street photos. Next best thing to walking down a NYC bike lane. How about street-crosser in the "brace of CitiBikes" photo? She has proto-Babble-calves.

JLRB I regretfully report that Portland already had cute bike-lane-symbol-person add-ons a while back, including e.g. headphones, funky hairdos. SOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE. Did this contribute to my decision to move out of the city? Not until I saw it self-congratulatingly covered in BikePortland.

Hey, nice photo montage of the circling fixie in the crosswalk, but next time how about a NSFW warning? That 30 foot tall couple doing it doggy style in the Calvin Klein ad on the side of the building almost got me fired.

The little girl in the family of salmon had a helment, but it was hanging from her handlebar instead of actually on her head.

Can you give your take on the phenomenon sometime soon? It's always confused the crap out of me. Fine, don't take your helmet along if you want to ride without it, but if you've already incurred the weight and inconvenience penalty, slap it on your noggin, right?

I wanna ride with you one day Mr. Snob, except there's too much of that work stuff going on. And as slow as you proclaim to be, I am probably slower.

I know all those pathways, I take the Manhattan Br to midtown. The old dirt road: The thing with that is the ascent tires people out so I have to pass them after they're weaving around from malaise, fatigue, and basking in the afterglow of moderate achievement. Also depending on the weather, that little path can become quicksand and ensnare helpless gravelle freds. Ends up being faster to do the turn but then you risk running into them broadside. Would not worry except that it would cause me to fall too and well, that shit's no good. My ribs still hurt from last week's fallover. Won't even start in about Ms. Babble.

There were 2 stainless retractable/removable pylon things at the bottom of that hill. One is now removed because maybe people kept salmoning into each other? Or maybe they just said "fuck it" and will allow wide motorcycles to cross there along with the other motorized rolling menagerie. Won't be long til a car tries to go up there, kill someone and the city brass will just say "oh well, you know cycling's dangerous" (with no regard for the motorvehicular badness).

That little stretch of Bowery / 4th Avenue was just fine without a bike lane, now, you're supposed to ride in that wheelchair lane. So many Citibikers seem to find a way to make themselves impassable in the lanes. No hurry, if you could saunter or meander on those things, well that's what happens. I thought you had to return them on time or face the consequences. Or maybe they thought, hey, I just made this brown citisaddle black again, I'm taking my damm time.

News from the Great Hilpster Silk Route -> Flatbush Ave right by my marina (Gateway) is being all dugged up for a gas pipeline. So, the normally crappy sidewalk / path to ride on is not available. "You" as in plural You All or referred to in 3rd person "they" also meaning the merry band of bearded tatooed ladies and gents escaping the heat of Bushwick and Williburg have to cross to the Floyd Bennett side of Flatbush Ave. No biggy as I don't have to worry as much when pulling out of the marina after driving the boat that I do own (16 cylinders of Bigfoot carbon footprint, Byrne be darned). The THING is, a lot of folks are riding in the already way too narrow car lanes (which many times is dead stop due to the timing of the traffiq lights near the golf driving range and the place where "you / they" should pick up the other side (north side) bike path. Anywayze. "People" are not just riding southbound with traffic in harmony but there are salmonfolk in there as well causing the chocolate vs. peanut butter exchange of "you got nosering in my tattoo", "You got tattoo in my neckerchief". So for the love of Lob, cross Flatbush Ave and use the actually really nice path on the Floyd Bennett side, then cross back to get on the bridge. Saves so much aggravation.

Mr / Ms Annonymous-> "On my daily commute I routinely and smugly stop before the crosswalk and let pedestrians cross with the light unmolested, but I seem to be in the minority as about 90% of the other cyclists roll through the cross walk. I then have to squeeze around them into traffic to pass them. If any of you readers do this (shoal), please stop. It is a fucking dick move.

June 18, 2014 at 1:57 PM"

You are totally correct!! Happens to me too. Do these motherfluffers not see that they will be passed again and again as they create the annoying condition? Next time put the bike sideways so they can't pass!! vsk

Snobz you forgot another con: "People on the train are forever trying to talk to you about your folding bike." But maybe that's just a yokel thing from out here in the far-flung hinterlands of New York's knuckle-tat. And I mean you know like whatever, that's fine if you like "having conversations" and shit.

All set to analyse the photos to try and determine what kind of folder you ride. I figured, nah, easier to just read the comments; someone else has figured it out and critiqued the placement of the grip shift.

Well, apparently everyone here is as lazy as I am. From a cursory look, it definitely looks like the work of a Hon family member or a suitably unauthorized copy.

I love my bike lanes here in SC - the ones I ride on, anyway. I am always the only one in them! Occasionally, VERY occasionally I will see someone going the opposite direction on the other side of the road, or see one of the DUI cases on their wal mart bikes up on the sidewalk. But unless I am doing a group ride I never run into another soul on a bike when on my work commute.

I was out for a bicycle cycling ride the other day in a somewhat picturesque western Colorado town that has a lovely national monument that once hosted a stage of the Coors Classic Bicycle Race (if you can stand it, American Flyers really captures the feel of American bike racing in the 80s and features scenes of said national monument) and I saw a bunch of freds out for a ride out for a ride on what looked like some sort of commercial tour group. I sad "man, that's a herd of freds." But then I said "what is the proper term for a grouping of freds?". You have a herd of cattle, a pod of whales, a murder of crows, etc. And then it came to me. The proper term for a grouping of freds is peloton. As in "man, that's a peloton of freds."

I should add that when I am not exactly in a position to be derisively calling a fred a fred. When I saw the peloton of freds, I was wearing a full team kit (at least it's a shop team and not a pro team, but that's probably neither here nor there), I was sporting a Camelbak, and I was riding the super fred special. The super fred special was formerly a cyclocross bike that I have converted to a hil climber/gravel "racer". It has a a 34 tooth ring on the front and an 11-34 on the back. Oh, and I have velcro strapped a full length frame pump under the top tube. It is the embodiment of dorkiness. The only things that set me apart from the peloton of freds is that I was alone in my dorkiness, I am a little younger, and not quite as fat.

one of my favorite moments of Boston BRA 2 was when my friend Lee, who never reads this "blog" and hardly ever rides a bike, asked snobby, who was riding a pie-plated foldable and wearing a large backpack, "when you stop, will clowns climb out of that bag on your shoulders?"

Don't worry Snobsie, as a "totally out of it" New Yorker you are still more up in the Zeitgeist, like some kind of human suppository, than even the most hip and happening cat in my town. Actually, now that I think about it, the metaphor would work better if the zeitgeist is the suppository, delivering the culture straight in though your butt. Either way, best of luck to you.

Don't worry Snobsie, as a "totally out of it" New Yorker you are still more up in the Zeitgeist, like some kind of human suppository, than even the most hip and happening cat in my town. Actually, now that I think about it, the metaphor would work better if the zeitgeist is the suppository, delivering the culture straight in though your butt. Either way, best of luck to you.

Don't worry Snobsie, as a "totally out of it" New Yorker you are still more up in the Zeitgeist, like some kind of human suppository, than even the most hip and happening cat in my town. Actually, now that I think about it, the metaphor would work better if the zeitgeist is the suppository, delivering the culture straight in though your butt. Either way, best of luck to you.

I shouldn't be so disparaging toward my town folk, I mean, we have internet. That is how I looked up the meaning of zeitgeist. It was written with a capital Z in the first sentence because I copied it straight from Wikipedia that way. Well, as I learnt from our Prime Minister, no one person can be the suppository of all wisdom

Sure, shoal me all you like, but my little wheels accelerate faster than yours, and I'm inevitably half way down the block before you've cleared the intersection. Those little wheels mean I have no trouble dodging around you either.

Man those corn dogs really messed me up. I sure hope there is something from one of the actual food groups for lunch today. The circling fixie dork didn't help, either. Anyway, no wheelsuckers today at least.

• My everyday ride is a folder (a Bike Friday). One advantage of small wheels for city riding is that they accelerate more quickly. Shoalers jockey to get ahead because they fear I'm going to slow them down, but I'm generally the first one across the intersection, without even trying.

I used to think too hard about where to position myself so that I'm not doing something startling like passing on the right, but I've found that it doesn't matter. Usually they're all just behind me, half of them on their phones tweeting about how great shoaling is.

And late to the comments game, but whatevz. Folding bike is not redundant if you live in a water closet of an apartment, Citi Bike not withstanding. You try finding a Citi Bike on the Lower East Side in the morning. Or you decide to go somewhere like, say, Point Lookout. That ride would have cost $300 or something.

I'm guessing New York has a disproportionately high percentage of self-important, narcissistic assholes, compared to, say, Chicago. It's just that a lot of those assholes are now riding CitiBikes. I ride a folder (2007 Dahon Ciao P8) everywhere in my Midwestern university town and never get a sneer. Or maybe it's just more acceptable for a woman to ride a folder.

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!